With the overcrowded conditions of conventional golf courses, the expense of play and the time required to play a round of golf, a number of people have recognized the need for providing a compact form of golf course which is less expensive due to use of less land, allows multiple players to speed up the time and as a result of the two, reduces the cost to the golf player. A number of patents have issued for compact golf courses as a result. These patents include the following:
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. No. Issued Inventor ______________________________________ 3,129,943 April 21, 1964 McKee 3,310,310 March 21, 1967 McKee 3,464,703 Sept. 2, 1969 Vallas 3,685,832 Aug. 22, 1972 Johnson 3,904,209 Sept. 9, 1975 Thomas 3,999,764 Dec. 28, 1976 Nitsche 4,019,748 April 26, 1977 Healey 4,063,738 Dec. 20, 1977 Michalson 4,129,300 Dec. 12, 1978 Magnuson 4,129,510 March 11, 1980 Miller 4,283,056 Aug. 11, 1981 Miller ______________________________________
Each of these patents disclose golf courses requiring significantly less ground than a standard golf course, and often to varying degrees appear to achieve the objective of faster play and reduced cost.
It would appear from the study of these patents that many of them go to a great extent to simulate play of the golf course and may attempt to provide an atmosphere of isolation through the use of natural and artificial barriers between player tees providing a degree of simulation of play of a conventional golf course. While a number of these objectives have been attained, at least partially, the compact golf course has not reached any significant acceptance in the golf community as noted by their absence from thu modern day golf scene. In a typical metropolitan area, one will find public and private full size golf courses, par three or reduced yardage golf courses and driving ranges but this inventor has yet to see a single operating compact golf course of the type disclosed in the above patents. Recognizing the continuing need for compact golf courses and after further study of the features of the several disclosures, this inventor finds that his basic concept provides features not present in any prior compact golf course designs and in fact provides a game of golf which is superior in a number of respects to the conventional golf game.